2019 Reprint Run: GMT Brings a Halftrack-load of Heroes Back to the Front

There’s no excuse to let a good wargame linger in out-of-print limbo.

OK, there are plenty such excuses—rights disputes, cash flow concerns, printing slots unavailability, actual lack of demand “out there”—but eventually, good designs just won’t stay down. They can’t help but show up for another round in the ring. Especially wargames, I suppose.

In 2019, GMT Games decided to reprint 10 of its more popular games (plus the Turn Zero mini-expansion to their evergreen title, Twilight Struggle) and none of them are light weights. The most accessible of the bunch is the solitaire Navajo Wars, which is a testament to the quality of the designs GMT decides to put out: even if they’re monster games with 50-page rulebooks (I’m decidedly looking at you, Empire of the Sun), people are still lining up for seconds.

Shall we?

Originally published in 2013, Joel Toppen’s first credit as a full-fledged designer took the solitaire world by storm. The theme was original, the mechanics—including a really fun cardboard AI—were fresh and new, and the game was a joyful challenge to play from start to finish. Toppen would eventually give us a second opus for his First Nations series in Comancheria, another solo conflict that has thus far devoured many of my evenings.

Navajo Wars is the heartwarming story of simple folks who welcome with open arms group after group of visitors from afar: first the Spanish, then the Mexicans, and finally the Americans. Each foreign nation lovingly leaves its mark on the native territory, until the Navajo opt for total annihilation amidst colored balloons and three-tiered cakes.

This 2^nd printing of Navajo Wars is identical to its predecessor, except it incorporates all known errata. Oh, and the dice are prettier.

(You can read my actual review of the game here.)

Tied with our previous entry for the bragging rights of “youngest reprint” on the list, The Dark Valley first saw the light of day in 2013. Ted Raicer had stuffed magazines with his games for years on end, until the box bug bit him—and he hasn’t stopped since. We’ve since been treated to an onslaught of outstanding designs, among those Clash of Giants (GMT, 2001), WWII: Barbarossa to Berlin (GMT, 2002), Grand Illusion (GMT, 2004), The Great War in Europe, Deluxe Edition (GMT, 2007), Case Yellow, 1940 (GMT, 2011), and The Dark Sands (GMT, 2018). (GMT has one more Dark game in the wings, The Dark Summer, slated for later this year.)

So what’s The Dark Valley about? Well, some decades ago, thirsty Germans decided to march all the way to the Volga, found the water there too wet, and backed out so fast they forgot to take their beloved 6^th Army with them.

The deluxe edition feature thicker counters, more player aids (with rules reference for faster carnage), and a mounted board with new map art.

Of course, all known errata are incorporated into the rulebook and new counters.

But wait, there’s more! The reverse side of the board features the map to Raicer’s own Barbarossa to Berlin, and the game comes with a full set of thick, luxurious counters for Barbarossa to Berlin!

Double-sided map goodness

It is currently impossible to buy the mounted map on its own from GMT, but rest assured it’ll show up in the actual Barbarossa to Berlin reprint when it reaches a sufficient number of “votes” on the P500 system.

Originally published by GMT in 2012, this was the first expansion for Jim Krohn’s well loved 4X game. Before that? Krohn had launched the successful Band of Brothers series (2011) for Worthington Publishing. Since then? The man gave us the exciting space dogfight Talon (GMT, 2016) plus more expansions for all of his game systems.

To the quintessential 4X of the original game (eXplore, eXclaim, eXplode, and eX-wife), Close Encounters adds a bunch of other, modular Xs that allow players to pimp their experience just the way they like it.

The 2^nd printing is a straight reprint of the original version, albeit without the “improved” Space Empires counter sheets slipped in the 1^st printing: those sheets can be found in the reprint of Space Empires itself.

Alas, still no mounted map—probably because Close Encounters doesn’t come with a map in the first place.

Then jumps in a 10-year old, the precursor to what would eventually become the celebrated COIN series of counter-insurgency games, starting with Andean Abyss (GMT, 2012) and from there taking off towards as-of-yet unimagined horizons.

(Ruhnke’s new design, Nevsky—also published by GMT—is being sprinkled all over the world as we speak. Time to go and learn a new system.)

But let’s not forget that Volko Ruhnke first designed the award-winning Wilderness War (published by GMT in 2001), before turning in his homework about angry people with beards, threatening other angry people (sometimes with beards, but mostly unkempt sideburns) using WMDs—Warnings of Mild Disappointment—regarding the fact that some countries were not behaving the way they would like.

The fourth printing of Labyrinth is identical to the third printing; naturally, all known errata are included here. Because every time you make a typo, the errorists win.

My favorite game of all time was brought into this world back in 2006, and was the brainchild of my friend Chad Jensen (who, sadly, left us in 2019). Chad would go on to design a steady stream of games, and not just in the wargaming arena: Combat Commander: Mediterranean (GMT, 2007), Combat Commander: Pacific (GMT, 2008), Dominant Species (GMT, 2010), Fighting Formations (GMT, 2011), Welcome to Centerville (GMT, 2017), and quite a few more. Later this year, we should receive a final gift from Chad, in the form of Dominant Species: Marine. I can’t wait to say hello again.

Sometime in the ‘40s, an angry mob decided they wanted more space to hold tailgate parties and whatnot. The neighbors complained about the noise, to no avail. They ended up calling the police, who showed up years later (quite the traffic jams in those days) and gently set the whole thing straight, accidentally nuking a country twice in the process.

This fourth printing of Combat Commander: Europe is identical to the previous one. Which is to say, awesome.

Empire of the Sun first appeared in 2005 when Mark Herman, feeling like making his life more complicated, took his card-driven engine and applied it to a proper hex-and-counter game (as opposed to the point-to-point movement of all previous CDGs). And the rest is cardboard history.

Back in the mid ‘40s, getting a pizza delivered somewhere in the Pacific was no easy feat, what with a majority of carriers otherwise occupied with aircraft of all sorts. Most infuriating of all were the Japanese Zeroes—fast planes with a huge pepperoni logo stamped on their fuselages—buzzing around, reminding Americans that they weren’t getting any. Strong language was used, shots were eventually fired, and now we need a 52-page rulebook to untangle that sorry mess.

This 2^nd printing of the 2^nd edition (still with me?) shows up with a double-deep box containing everything the 1^st printing of the 2^nd edition did, plus a few minute adjustments to the rules, scenarios and charts. Most notably, it ships with Erasmus v2, an improved solo bot that learned a few tricks from its Pericles older brother.

Want some icing on that cake? Have some of the South Pacific scenario, first published in C3i Magazine.

Mark Simonitch had this one first published back in 2003, the second of his (now) extensive series of Place ‘XX games, all published by GMT and which include Ukraine ’43 (2000), Normandy ’44 (2010), France ’40 (2013), Holland ’44 (2017), Stalingrad ’42 (2019). Amongst his numerous other designs stands one exceptional title and a favorite of mine, Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage (Avalon Hill, 1996). It was the very first wargame I ever bought, based solely on the cover and the description on the  back—could I pick ‘em or what? I had the great pleasure of meeting the man (as charming as you would expect) a couple of years back, and I had him sign the board of my first edition Hannibal. Yes, I still play it. I just experience an extra jolt of joy when I look at the board.

It all started innocently enough as an Easter egg hunt through the woods of Belgium. There were suddenly a lot more hunters than anyone had anticipated. Before long, it became obvious that the eggs would run out before the bullets did, and nobody was one bit happy about it. When Patton broke through with a relief force, he mentioned something about omelet and broken eggs.

The box contains a multitude of small changes throughout the game—you can actually download the new rulebook from GMT’s website and see a complete list of those changes.

Mounted maps do exist, but they have to be bought separately, and sadly won’t fit with the rest of the material in the regular-depth box.

(Many German troops had to provide their own winter clothing. Shut up.)

First released in 1999—that’s 20 years ago, kids—Cataphract is one of many collaborations between Mark Herman (vaguely alluded to elsewhere in this review) and the late Richard Berg (designer of the mythical The Campaign for North Africa (SPI, 1979) and Blackbeard (Avalon Hill, 1991 and GMT, 2008) among many, many other games).

Cataphract stands as volume VIII in the Great Battles of History series, and it retells the exploits involved in the re-conquest of the Western Roman Umpire under the leadership of Justinian. Heavy cavalry roamed the field and dared someone—anyone—to try and stop them at third base, before they made it all the way home and swept the umpire off his feet. Literally.

The 2^nd printing incorporates all known errata, and features the Battles of the Utus River (447 CE) and the Catalaunian Fields (451 CE) from the original Attila Scourge of God module.

For his second appearance on this list, designer Ted Raicer offers a true classic, the justly famous Paths of Glory—originally unleashed onto the unsuspecting public in 1999, but more recently reprinted in 2015.

So what’s the game about?

Some Ferdinand dude got shot in Sarajevo on a tranquil day back in 1914. (The assailant later claimed that the gun had gone off by accident, although how the man came to be half inside Ferdinand’s car and with a gun pointed at the illustrious passenger’s neck was never explained to anyone’s satisfaction.) Then all hell broke loose: European powers grabbed decks of cards and scattered cardboard counters all over the place. And let me tell you, those counters crawled through blood and guts (and the occasional ill-maintained trench complex) to bring about victory for their respective nations. Want to know how it ended? Just play the game.

This deluxe edition includes 20 optional cards and optional counters from the PoG Player’s Guide (yes, yes, the one from 2002). It also features a new mounted board printed on both sides: one with the original, classic graphics, and the other with a brand spanking new map!

Old and new

Just make sure you guard your supply line, for the love of God.

Last but not least, we have the 2^nd printing of SPQR Deluxe Edition, once again from the Richard Berg and Mark Herman dream team. SPQR is our oldest game on the list: it was first published back in 1992, and quickly became one of the games you simply had to play if you were a serious wargamer. (Me? I learned the whole GBoH system with this edition of SPQR. I’m completely hooked. Was I a real wargamer before? Jury’s still out.)

As volume II of the Great Battles of History series, SPQR (Something Popular, Quixotic and Rad) highlights the “figures of speech” duels that used to pit dungeon dorks against each other during the dark ages known as the ‘80s. A whole variety of weapons were put to good use, including the hyperbole, the oxymoron, the alliteration (feared on account of its long reach) and the much dreaded synecdoche.

This 2^nd printing of the deluxe edition is identical to the original deluxe edition—well, almost, since the new box also holds the Barbarian module, along with updated rules graphics.

Please note that all of the updated rulebooks can be freely downloaded from the GMT website.

# # #

A Year of Boardgaming, 2019 Edition

One more year spent at the gaming table, pushing cubes and slapping cards on the table.
Let's look at some stats!

GAMES
I played 135 different titles (slightly down from 142 in 2018), for a total of 483 plays (up from 439—I'll make and effort and try to reach 500 plays for 2020!). Translated into grains of sands in the hourglass, this means 451 hours spent over cardboard confrontations and cooperative puzzles with family and friends, or almost 19 full days devoted to boardgaming bliss. I really can't complain. But I still want more, you understand.

Out of those 135 titles, 63 were new to me (almost the same as in the previous year: 67). I made a conscious effort to play more of my older games in 2019, so I'm a little surprised the number of new games went down by almost nothing. I guess I can't really stay away from the new stuff. Too shiny.

Here are the top 10 games I played the most in 2019:

1. Black Spy (26 plays)
      A classic trick-taking game, and a favorite at the office over lunch.

2. Combat Commander: Europe (19 plays)
      A WWII tactical wargame, and my all-time favorite.

3. Les Sept Sceaux (19 plays)

Known in the U.S. as Wizard Extreme, this is another trick-taking game that pleases the office crowd (and fits in the limited time we have each day).

4. Undaunted: Normandy (19 plays)

A simple wargame deck-builder that found its way onto my Top 10 for this year.

5. Arkham Horror: The Card Game (16 plays)

A Lovecraft-based cooperative experience that's as addictive as it is terrifying.

6. Pandemic Legacy, Season 2 (16 plays)

Also known as "cocaine in a box," season 2 was even better than season 1.

7. Axio (13 plays)

A simple and (really) quick-playing abstract game from Reiner Knizia.

8. Tramways (12 plays)

As far as train games go, this one's a genuine brain burner.

9. Forum Trajanum (11 plays)

An overused theme, but still one of my favorite recent designs by Stefan Feld.

10. Barrage (10 plays)

A clever hydroelectricity production game, and my favorite game of 2019. 

PEOPLE

During 2019, I explored the boardgaming world alongside 55 different players, down from 65 in 2018. Two years ago that number was 97: does it mean I want to play with fewer people, or is it the other way around?

So here are the top 10 people with whom I played the most in 2019:

1. Suzie D. (125 plays)

2. Gustavo A. (122 plays)

3. Jean-Luc S. (89 plays)
4. François P. (82 plays)

5. Niko S. (76 plays)

6. Maxime M. (65 plays)

7. Marilyne E. (31 plays)

8. Fred B. (23 plays)

9. Pascal G. (23 plays)

10. Jérôme G. (17 plays)

My two youngest daughters landed the 11th and 12th spots, so they are sadly not on the list this year. They used to be very active boardgamers, but I guess reaching 16 and 18 years of age awakens new and different interests. Still, the GF is holding on to the top spot, and for a third consecutive year!

Also, new colleagues who made an appearance on last year’s list are still there, and what’s more, they’re moving up the ranks—always a good sign. 

LOCATIONS

While my boardgaming had brought me to 13 locations in 2018, I ended up playing games in 17 different places throughout 2019, including New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and even Normandy, France, upon my early June trip there for the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

I played slightly less at home in 2019 than I did the previous year (56%, down from 65%), but my workplace boardgaming more than doubled (25%, up from 12%)! Boardgaming over lunch involves shorter games to be sure, but a play is a play.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

My h-index has been 10 for four years in a row. I'm cursed!
(In this context, my h-index is the number (h) of games, which I've played a number (h) of times.) In other words, for the past four years, there are 10 games I played 10 times each. I haven't been able to play 11 games 11 times each since 2014.

It makes it possible, at least, for me to complete my 10x10 Challenge, which is one of the recent obsessions shared by serious boardgamers: play 10 games 10 times within the same year. The intent here is to ward off what people call the "cult of the new," where players are only interested in the fresh releases and move on to greener pastures after giving each game just a few tries—sometimes not even venturing beyond a single play. The voluntary 10x10 challenge forces participants to truly explore a part of their collection, often revealing hidden depths that would otherwise never have surfaced.
I succeeded in achieving my 10x10 for 2019, but it was on "easy" mode: I just needed to play 10 games 10 times each, no matter what they were. As a result, some short games like Black Spy and Axio wormed their way into the challenge, alongside heavier fare such as Terraforming Mars and Tramways. 
So for 2020, I've given myself two such 10x10 Challenges: one with "regular" games (albeit more dense ones—the easiest game on the list is probably Viticulture), and one with only solo games (again, no freebies, with games ranging from Castle Itter to D-Day at Omaha Beach).

Here's what the things look like:

My favorite game, Combat Commander, currently stands at 433 plays. I have no doubt I'll cross the 500-play threshold in the next few years, especially now that my wargaming buddy François and I have decided to replay all of the official, published historical scenarios in chronological order. In other words, we're replaying WWII via Combat Commander. That's 118 scenarios through which I'm assuming the role of the Axis. For the first go, that is—because, being thoroughly insane, we've already decided we'd play the entire war in such a fashion twice. So I'll get to experience the entire thing from the other side in, what, three years?
We're already done with the first 14 scenarios, and I'm documenting every game here on my blog, in case you're curious (or just need something to help you fall asleep).

I begun 2019 with Pandemic: Fall of Rome, and I ended it with Kanban: Automotive Revolution. Not too shabby! 
As of this writing (on January 2nd), I already have three plays under my belt. Short games, but still! It's a promising start.

So what am I looking forward to in the coming year?
There's On Mars, the latest Vital Lacerda design; the game was supposed to arrive in 2019, but hey, that's Kickstarter for you. Then there's Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps! which sounds just like the old Aliens game from Leading Edge back in the late '80s, and which I loved so much. I'm also excited about 303 Squadron, a gorgeous Polish wargame about the Battle of Britain. What about Rocketmen, a space-bound deck-builder from my favorite designer, Martin Wallace? And, of course, a slew of GMT Games releases, among them Apocalypse Road (a Mad Max-type race/slaughter fest), Caesar: Rome vs Gaul (the follow-up to the seminal Hannibal), Dominant Species: Marine (the last game from my dear, departed friend Chad Jensen), and more.

As always, it's going to be a fun ride.

# # #

My Top 10 Boardgames Published in 2019

I've been doing this for four years now, and I don't see why I should stop. :)
So here are my picks for the ten best boardgames to come out in 2019.

#10 

CASTLE ITTER (designed by David Thompson, published by Dan Verssen Games)
At the very end of WWII, German and American troops (along with French prisonners of wars, an SS commander and even a member of the Austrian resistance) fought side-by-side to defend Schloss Itter against an SS onslaught. What better setting for a solitaire wargame?
Slightly reminiscent of Victory Point Games' States of Siege series, Castle Itter puts you right in the thick of things, assaulted on all sides, fighting to survive until reinforcements can punch through. It's a nail-biter to the finish, with enough replayability to keep you entertainingly stressed-out for long evenings to come.

#9

SPACECORP (designed by John Butterfield, published by GMT Games)

Another solitaire offering, this one by the master of the genre, John Butterfield. Develop ambitious technologies, take to the stars, explore the solar system—and then venture far beyond!
Technically a multiplayer game, I am of the opinion that it first came to life as a solitaire adventure. I found it merely okay as a group experience, but solo? That's where the game truly shines.
An expansion is currently in the works, and I couldn't be more excited.
You can read my full review here.

#8

FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS 2052 (designed by Mike Fitzgerald, published by Eagle-Gryphon Games)
I was already sold on Fitzgerald's previous sports game, Baseball Highlights 2045, but there's something I like even better in this one. It still presents itself as a futuristic version of a match's highlights, but this time has both opponents playing two highlights at the same time, with each affecting the other.
It sounds like a total mess, but it works, it feels like football, and it's a whole lot of fun.

#7

FOOTHILLS (designed by Ben Bateson and Tony Boydell, published by Lookout Games)

Billed as "as Snowdonia experience," Foothills manages to carve out its own niche while hewing to its lineage.
It's much more than "Snowdonia, the card game" and presents original game mechanics and unique challenges. Yet, if you're a Snowdonia veteran, you'll feel right at home.

#6

C&C: MEDIEVAL (designed by Richard Borg, published by GMT Games)

The latest entry in Borg's Commands & Colors sprawling series, it also happens to be the finest distillation of the entire system. Somewhere between Ancients and Napoleonics in terms of complexity, Medieval manages to bring something fresh to the table, reinvents the tactician deck with its Inspired Actions tokens, and shows up with 19 exciting historical scenarios.
You can read my full review here.

#5

UNDAUNTED: NORMANDY (designed by Trevor Benjamin & David Thompson, published by Osprey Games)
This is Thompson's second game on this list, and it's well earned.
Undaunted: Normandy is a light wargame deck-builder that offers simple and innovative mechanics, topped with totally addictive gameplay. I burned through the game's scenarios in the blink of an eye, and I'm looking forward to the upcoming Undaunted: North Africa.

#4

TANK DUEL (designed by Mike Bertucelli, published by GMT Games)

Another light and exciting wargame, Tank Duel drops you behind the wheel of a 20-ton steel monster. There is no game board: all movement is resolved in an abstract manner with relative range and only serves to showcase the intense firefights that will blow your socks off.
Deep? No, sir. Fun? You bet. It's not at #4 for nothin'.
You can read my full review here.

#3

CLANK! LEGACY (designed by Andy Clautice & Paul Dennen, published by Dire Wolf Digital, Penny Arcade, and Renegade Game Studios)

I wasn't convinced by the original Clank, fell under the charm of Clank in Space (which fixed everything that was getting on my nerves in the original game), but became totally addicted to this legacy incarnation. 
A laugh-a-minute experience backed with exciting gameplay, this is the Clank I can't put down. It's also the most innovative legacy game I've played so far.

#2

WATERGATE (designed by Matthias Cramer, published by Frosted Games and Capstone Games)

Running on an abstract engine and offering the tense multi-purpose card play found in classics such as Twilight Struggle, Watergate is an amazing game dripping with historical flavor, and that plays in under an hour. There's no excuse not to give this jewel a shot.

#1

BARRAGE (designed by Tommaso Battista & Simone Luciani, published by Cranio Creations)

The Italians nab the top spot two years in a row!
Despite some horrendous production problems and too many mouthfuls of lies to count during the Kickstarter campaign (not to mention an arrogant and condescending twit at the head of Cranio Creations), Barrage is so original and engaging that I can't help myself. With high replayability, several paths to victory and an unusual theme (not to mention the super fun construction wheel), I'll be playing this one for years to come.

DISAPPOINTMENTS
I define "disappointements" as games I expected a lot from, and which failed to deliver. And 2019 turned out to be devoid of any disappointments worthy of the name.
So I guess it was a great year overall!



STRAGGLERS
Let's conclude with three games that would have made the list had I encountered them in time.

Published in 2015, Stonewall's Sword managed to elude me until the very last months of 2019. What a shame!
Built around the Blind Swords system—a chit-pull framework with repeat activations and semi-random events—the game offers exciting action, tense situations, clear and logical rules, plus a really cool way to resolve battles. Except for a map that's sometimes difficult to read (apparently fixed in the second edition), the whole thing is brilliant and made me add every single Blind Swords game to my wish list.

Although I never played any of the videogames, I fell hard for Fallout (2017) when I tried it this year. The way the game tells a story is totally mesmerizing, and I love how resolving some quests and not others opens up the narrative by throwing new, related cards into the mix. 
In the end, it's as much an experience as it is a game, and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

When you first read the rules to Biblios (2007), you can't believe it'll be any fun. I mean, there's so little to do, and it's got this strange two-phase structure, and the game is probably over way too quickly anyway... Turns out it's an exhilarating little game with more painful decisions that should be able to fit in that small box.
So yes, I'm 12 years behind the curve on this one, but I'm happy I finally happened upon it.

# # #

Wargame review — Tank Duel

(My review of the first two expansions is here.)

Move Over, Gunther

Designer: Mike Bertucelli

Player count: 1-8

Publisher: GMT Games

While the concept of war conjures up many different images and indeed has inspired an onslaught of movies, no martial element seems to fuel the collective imagination quite as effectively as the tank. Sure, war planes go faster and ships offer their own alloy of might and elegance, but tanks are much more relatable. For one thing, they work hand-in-hand (so to speak) with the infantry, the basic building block of any army. For another—and this may be the crux of the fascination they hold over us—the fact that tanks operate on land brings them vertiginously close to the everyday vehicles we’ve all grown accustomed to. Cars, trucks, big rigs… There’s an immediacy that pulls tanks within our reach. In a bind, we’re pretty sure we could drive one of those steel behemoths.

Yet, strangely, few games have tackled those mechanical beasts head on. Oh, there’s always a handful of tank counters in your run-of-the-mill wargame, but how often do you find yourself in the thick of things, maneuvering your metal fortress across treacherous terrain while trying to spot an enemy tank—and get off a shot before he does?

This is exactly what designer Mike Bertucelli and publisher GMT are proposing with Tank Duel, a title that mixes the old with the new in an exciting and volatile package.

In this first volume, Russia clashes with Germany as both sides control a handful of tank lining up for the carnage. Each tank is represented by a large player board, loaded with weapons stats, stations for crewmen, range indicators, and more. On that board are logged a tank’s successes, using the victory point track, but also its failures—usually in the form of wounded or dead crew members.

Let’s get one essential bit of info out of the way right now: there is no game board in Tank Duel, and movement is completely abstracted. Range is relative to what is imagined as the middle of the battlefield, meaning that if Tank A is marked at 400 meters and Tank B at 200 meters, both are 600 meters away from each other. (Older gamers might be reminded of Avalon Hill's Up Front, and they wouldn’t be wrong.) No lines of sight, no zones of control, no movement point allowance—the system feels strange at first but quickly becomes natural and fades in the background when the shells start to fly.

The beating heart of Tank Duel is a deck of Battle Cards, each of which features a Battle Number (from 1 to 100), one or more card effect, possible terrain effects, and a series of icons, triggers and markings. Each turn, a player must manage all of his tanks using a single hand of cards, which means that not all of his machines will be able to move or fire. First, each tank gets assigned a face-down initiative card. That card’s action will be disregarded: only its Battle Number is considered. Then tanks act in order, from lowest initiative to highest. When a tank’s turn has come—after going through a quick procedure to figure out whether a blazing tank survives or goes from bad to worse, or whether a demoralized crew rallies or decides to bail out without ceremony—its controller selects one of his remaining cards and launches the beast into action.

A Move card allows the tank to get 200m closer to of farther from the middle of the battlefield—with two Moves played together making that distance 400—but only if the Move card shows a number that is equal to or lower than the moving tank’s Move Level. (You used that Move 4 as an initiative card? Too bad.) Playing a Flank card while moving makes it possible for the tank to flank a spotted enemy, thus gaining access to more vulnerable armor. Playing a Terrain card after moving will stop that tank behind a building or in a wood, while not playing such a card will keep the tank in motion and make it harder to hit—unless the opponent plays a Terrain card on his turn, which could halt the moving tank in the middle of an open field, or worse, in a muddy bog.

A Smoke card hides the active tank behind an impenetrable curtain, provided the tank is actually equipped with a smoke dispenser, of course.

A Leadership card can conceal the active tank, spot an enemy, or steal a random card from an opponent’s hand.

Discarding any card enables a wide array of minor actions, which includes loading special ammunition (for that extra kick we all crave), and rearranging crew seating after Gunther the driver got more than he bargained for.

With a Fire card, the active tank can take a shot at an enemy they’ve previously spotted.

And that’s when things start to go boom.

First, the Fire card’s number needs to be equal to or lower than the active tank’s Fire Level. (Again, you should have thought twice before you used that Fire 3 as an initiative card.) Then the player declares his target and looks up his to-hit number based on the active tank’s ordnance chart: the closer you stand to your target, the bigger punch you deliver.

To that base number are added several modifiers, such as +20 for the play of a Leadership card, -20 for a Tactics card, +10 if target is flanked by the firing tank, plus size modifier, cover modifier, and so on. The player flips the top card of the battle deck and looks—intently—at its Battle Number: if it’s equal to or lower than the modified to-hit number just arrived at, the target is hit (but keep in mind cards 96 through 100 are automatic misses). If the attack was successful, another card flip determines the exact location of the hit. (Alternatively, the firing player could have played two Fire cards together, which enables him to select the hit location without resorting to the randomness of a card flip.)

Two similar checks are then executed for penetration and damage—the latter relying on the top card of the damage deck. Depending on whether damage was light, heavy, or perhaps critical (!), the ensuing destruction can go from a wounded crewman to tracks getting blow away (that tank’s moving days are behind it), to the outright explosion of that poor machine.

Following the fireworks, crewmen might have to bail. When that happens, a battle card is flipped for each man trying to get out the hell out of there: if that card features an icon that depicts the reason for the attempted escape (fire or explosion being the usual culprits), the crewman is killed. Of course, wounded crew must flip two battle cards and survive both—nobody said life would get any easier with shrapnel embedded in your right leg.

This procedure may seem lengthy but is in fact very intuitive and becomes second nature by the time you’re mourning the loss of your second T-34.

Whenever a crewman dies or a tank gets blown up (or, less spectacularly, abandoned), the opponent earns points. And the more important the crew member, the higher the point reward. The game ends after a number of “deck shuffles” as specified by the scenario, at which point the player or side with the most points wins. 

WAR PRODUCTION

The deep game box is stuffed to the brim with counters and markers of all kinds, several decks of thick, reliable cards, a mountain of player aids… but the real stars of the show are the 16 double-sided tank dashboards. Ever dreamt of sitting at the controls of a 1943 Tiger, or a massive IS-2m? Now’s your chance. They’re even printed on cardboard as thick as steel plates.

It’s a beautiful package, with exciting board art and attractive card backs I don’t mind spending hours staring at while blowing away my friends.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

The rules to Tank Duel are pretty simple, and the 20-page rulebook does an excellent job of laying them out in an organized and methodical manner. It’s one of those elusive rulebooks that are both excellent teaching machines, but also efficient reference tools—with an index at the back!

The much more voluminous playbook rides in with reinforcements in the form of a 20-page tutorial (that you probably won’t need—and that’s a positive thing), advanced and optional rules (hello infantry and anti-tank guns), a handful of scenarios, solitaire rules and example of play, plus a nifty card index and designer’s notes.

Overall the game is easy to learn and exciting to get into gear. Easy enough, in fact, for you to teach it to your buddy in about 20 minutes—something that can’t be said of many wargames.

FUN FACTOR

Without reaching for the cheapest pun within range, Tank Duel is a blast.

What it is not is a serious simulation or an intellectual exercise in armor command. You (abstractly) move around, get an enemy tank in your sights, try to find the best angle of attack, and fire away. The fun lies in trying to outflank your opponent, getting one of your tanks closer to the front for some scenario points (and the ability to draw more cards!), while using the rest of your armored machines to keep would-be attackers in check, and blasting away until everything on their side of the battlefield is ablaze.

Multiple options on each card force players to make deliciously difficult choices. Will you use your only Fire card to simply shoot at your opponent, or would it be more valuable to move your infantry forward, or perhaps open fire with one of your anti-tank guns in an advantageous position—or just use the low Battle Number to give yourself an edge when the initiative phase comes around?

Things also get hairy (i.e. interesting) when crewmen start to kick the steel-reinforced bucket. A dead driver will immobilize his tank until you spend an action moving someone else to his seat. (And depending on who takes his place, your tank might not move as well as it previously did.) The same goes for your gunner, your loader—and God forbid your commander should get hit.

Multiplayer is possible, with several players on each side, but I vastly prefer the head-to-head match: it forces you to operate your entire complement of tanks with a single hand of card, which in turn creates agonizing and game-changing decisions.

The game comes with a card-driven AI that makes for a nice enough adversary. However, it requires that you constantly recalculate whether enemy tanks have high or low quality shots, which wasn’t to my liking. It became too cumbersome for me, but your mileage may vary.

PARTING SHOTS

The only real beef I have with the game lies with its scenarios. Most of them are of the sandbox type where you’re given a basic situation and asked to pick your favorite tank match-up, along with a more or less experienced crew, as you see fit.

Me? I want historical scenarios (or plausible hypotheticals) that force me into unenviable positions and scream that I have to get myself out of them. The playbook proposes two such scenarios, which is not nearly enough. Give me more! I’d happily buy a scenario booklet in a ziplock bag.

Everything else about Tank Duel puts a large smile on my face.

One of my favorite aspects is how a game ends: while the “shuffle” card is always shuffled in the bottom half of the battle deck, the “game end” card—upon the very last reshuffle of the game—goes anywhere in the deck, leaving opponents no room to breathe, no margin of error. The skirmish might end at any time now, and if you don’t make up for lost time (and points) with your next two or three actions, that’s it, you’re toast.

Of course, you can then just play another match.

And I know you will.

Not exactly a great situation—but hey, the game's over!

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